The continuing tales of Gendo JinKan

[Onkai]

Thank you for your story and your teaching. Thank you for introducing Green Onion Roshi.

Gassho, Onkai
Sat lah

[Tai Shi]

Rev. Jenkin, though I am not a priest, I too face level 7 to 9 each day. I depend on the kindness of my dear wife, who Jundo calls my best Zen teacher. I wear Lidocaine patches, 5% on my neck, chest. mid back, and lower back. Were it not for this pain medication, intended for dentists and applied to jell on a fabric which is prescription, I would have no life. Recently I underwent Radiofrequency Ablation on my lower back intended for 9 months then repeated every 9 months, and I take a handful of muscle relaxers which may eventually kill me. Yet, I am 71 years old, and I expect to reach 85 easily and in spite of severe chronic pain ans so long as I am able.
Gassho
sat/lah

[Geika]

stlah

[Jinkan]

So I have Covid and me chest really hurts and I’m not feeling too grand. I’m going to leave this as a brief update and place holder until me head clears up and I can organize me thoughts and write me regular update. Hopefully later today but maybe later depending on me health. While I’m waiting I will master serene coughing and hacking up stuff.
Gassho
JinKan
Laying Down

[Onkai]

Metta, JinKan. I hope you soon fully recover from COVID. Thank you for the update in the meantime.

Gassho, Onkai
Sat lah

[Tokan]

I hope it passes soon!

Gassho, Tokan

satlah

[Jundo]

We will sit for you today, and you take it slow.

You place is held.

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jinkan]

For this delayed update I want to talk about letting go and being a teacher. I briefly want share what popped into me head this last zazenkai. I had a weird feeling of familial embarrassment which is strange feeling for me since both me parents have passed. It popped into me head as music started and Jundo started dancing. For the briefest moment familial embarrassment and this single thought. Oh Christ on a cracker Dads dancing again. Both thought and emotion disappeared as quickly as they appeared but I recognized them and remembered them and thought I would share. For it gave me the briefest pause and a chuckle.

Since being sick I have had to give up much. Zen luckily is all about letting go of attachments so I had preparation before it happened. Others are not so lucky. We are often told to let go of wants, desires and sometimes even needs. We are also told that some times it is ok to have those wants and desires but how do we as Zen Buddhist choose. As always Shikintaza will give us the answer. I know it sounds almost disingenuous to say sit and you will get the answer but it is the honest truth. The simple act of sitting encompasses all the three fold training. While sitting we encompass all of buddhism. Most of us are sitting in recognition of the four noble truths and the act of sitting encompasses the eightfold path. Sitting in recognition of the four noble truths leads to right view and right intention which then leads to right concentration and mindfulness and so on. The wisdom gained from our practice lets us know wants and desires we should keep and when we should let them go. Hopefully these examples will make this clearer.

There is a new Legend of Zelda video game out. I have been a fan of the franchise since the original NES version. I really want to play the game but I don’t have the money to afford it and also me switch is broken. I would also like to be better versed and scholarly when it comes to the dharma. I want to have the knowledge to expound on and write treatises on Sutras and the Shobogenzo. Dyslexia and language issues make reading difficult and difficulties creating long term memory make retaining learned information next to impossible. One desire is monetarily out of reach while the other is physically. So I let both desires go. If thoughts about them arise I let them flow through me like fog through a tree. Most of our suffering is caused by not being able to let unattainable desires go. For me letting go of Zelda is easy but letting go of being a scholar and the idea of being a perfect teacher was hard. It took awhile to let go that attachment and to realize truly as Buddhists we must always remember we are not perfect but still strive for perfection while letting go of perfection. For when we finally realize there is nothing perfect we are perfected. So I continue to read even though I retain very little. I study strive and let go. I do this not out of attachment but because that wee bit of information I retain may benefit others. So don’t grasp and cling to desires and wants instead to use the wisdom gained through sitting to accept and let them go.

Getting reminded I am a teacher. This is a short aside. A day ago I sent Jundo a picture of calligraphy for some scrolls I was going to make for our soon to be Unsui. Just a gift to congratulate them and welcome them to the priesthood. These scrolls were a dragon talisman that is traditionally given to traveling Unsui. Jundo politely asked me not to make the scrolls because the Hobbit movie ruined dragons for him. I am kidding of course. Treeleaf is about Dogens Shikantaza and the more esoteric elements of Soto Zen have been dropped because Jundos teacher Nishijima didn’t put any emphasis in them. It is why we don’t chant any Dharanis. What he also did without saying a word is remind me that I am a teacher and I need to be careful what I do. While meant to be an artful gift there is a chance that it could be perceived as a new treeleaf document or teaching. Just as we are practitioners and as practitioners on this path we are always practicing. I am a teacher and always teaching and must be just as careful about that as I am me practice.

Gassho,
Jinkan
Sat

[Onkai]

Thank you, JinKan. Your posts are full of wisdom. I also have trouble retaining information long term. You are adept at turning any situation into a valuable teaching.

Gassho, Onkai
Sat lah

[Jundo]

Getting reminded I am a teacher. This is a short aside. A day ago I sent Jundo a picture of calligraphy for some scrolls I was going to make for our soon to be Unsui. Just a gift to congratulate them and welcome them to the priesthood. These scrolls were a dragon talisman that is traditionally given to traveling Unsui. Jundo politely asked me not to make the scrolls because the Hobbit movie ruined dragons for him. I am kidding of course. Treeleaf is about Dogens Shikantaza and the more esoteric elements of Soto Zen have been dropped because Jundos teacher Nishijima didn’t put any emphasis in them. It is why we don’t chant any Dharanis. What he also did without saying a word is remind me that I am a teacher and I need to be careful what I do. While meant to be an artful gift there is a chance that it could be perceived as a new treeleaf document or teaching. Just as we are practitioners and as practitioners on this path we are always practicing. I am a teacher and always teaching and must be just as careful about that as I am me practice.

I want to explain that a bit, Jinkan.

So, I consider myself an unabashed Buddhist modernist who seeks to retain ancient, traditional Teachings and Practices which have meaning and power, but to leave aside some things which smack more of spiritualism, superstition, hocus-pocus, hidden mysterious forces and the like. My teacher, Nishijima, was pretty much just the same on such things. I do recognize that belief alone has a certain "power," but I feel that sooth-saying, incantation and magical beliefs are something we can do with a bit less of in Buddhism, at least in this Sangha (folks who like those things can find plenty of that in other places.)

The dragon talisman, a "Ryuten-jiku," is this, a scroll (軸 Jiku) dedicated to the Ryuten (龍天 "Dragon Heavenly (Beings)"), protective deities of Zen temples and monks:

[E]ach Soto monastery usually had its own local protective spirit. In the Soto school these protective deities are known by the generic term ryuten. Zen monks were expected not only to provide ordinations for ryuten but also to chant scripture for them as well. Significantly, Soto monks did not regard these rituals as supplications of a superior being. Instead, Soto kirikami [traditional explanatory documents] describe the ryuten as being on the same inferior level as ordinary people because they lack the Buddhist precepts necessary for enlightenment. Moreover, in some Soto kirikami the ryuten were described as being abstract symbols, not real beings. For example, a sanwa (i.e., koan) initiation document passed down in the Ryoan line states that ryuten are personifications of the same mind possessed naturally by all men. According to this document, we do not realize that the ryuten exist within each of us because we literally believe that kami protect Buddhism in exchange for having received the precepts. It states, however, that the real ryuten are the original mind realized during Zen meditation. If one realizes that original mind, then one sees that there are no external ryuten. Evil actions, however, will cause the original mind to dissolve away. In other words, it is not the power of the precepts that cause kami to protect Buddhism, but the implementation of the precepts through Zen meditation that protects Buddhism. In this document, precept ordinations for kami, which might seem more like folk religion than Zen practice, are redefined through koan language in order to produce a new interpretation of this practice. In typical Zen fashion, the question of ryuten is turned into a reflection on the depth and purity of one’s own religious practice. -- From 'Soto Zen in Medieval Japan'

Here is an example:

tsuku0.jpg

So, I asked Jinkan to gift something else as a scroll, not such a protective talisman.

However, as it says, the real dragon is truly empty. Also, now that I read Jinkan's words, I have come instead to see that this Dragon God Scroll DOES have real power ... the power of Jinkan's friendship and generosity toward those he was making them for. So, Jinkan, on that basis, should you wish to make and gift them after all, I think it lovely to do so ... please, let me drop my objection ...

... so long, of course, as we do not think of them as actual "talisman" talismans.

Gassho, J

stlah

[Shinshi]

Thank you Jinkan. Your words always touch me deeply.

Gassho, Shinshi

SaT-LaH

[Jinkan]

I first want to share that I feel like I have let you all down having no new illness or hospitalization. I started licking door knobs coming up on this Friday in hopes of the flesh eating virus or at least thrush. Hopefully it is obvious that I am being facetious and Im am feeling somewhat ok which is doing grand for me.
I want to expound a little about what I wrote last time in regards to studying. I was asked why do I continue to study if I get next to nothing from it. If I am retaining so little why do add this burden onto me already heavy load. Isn’t it a worthless endeavor if nothing is retained. My reply is that it is difficult and often frustrating but never worthless. It is practice just as sitting and sewing. When we sit we just sit we don’t seek enlightenment, samadhi, or wisdom. When we sew we just sew if a Kesa or Rakusu manifest that is just the same as if they don’t. It is the same for me with reading. I sit with the book struggle with words and read. I don’t hope for retention or even comprehension I just except whatever comes from the practice. That doesn’t mean to say that I am implying apathy and indifference. I read with right mind and concentration not with what might at first seems indifference. It is actually non attachment. So please remember when you use right understanding and right action there is no meaningless or worthless activity.
I lastly need to talk about gifts and money. I was recently offered money from a person who has really appreciated these small talks. I have never been offered money before and probably never again. That said I still want clarify that I cannot except any gifts monetary or otherwise. If you want to support me donate to Treeleaf and the Monastery of Open Doors but only if you have that desire I am not soliciting. I wrote this because as a teacher I haven’t had to deal with this and thought clarification might be in order. If I was doing takuhatsu I could ethically except a donation since I am not on an alms round I cannot. The Dharma is here free for all and please know you don’t need to pay or support me. I am not trying to solicit funds when I talk about being poor or medical bills. I am trying to point towards practicing through adversity.
Gassho,
JinKan
Sat

[Tai Shi]

I taught for money and that was a long time ago, had got me was computerization of the whole business, and that I felt the emphasis moved away from the actual act of composing an essay as for of beauty and that when I taught Rhetoric students paid attention to writers, and they came into universities to get an education. Now books are burned in Texas my beloved Walt Whitman from whom I learned the body electric, and when lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed And That young man coming of age, but for me it was younger, I couldn't stand it. It's not poetry its portrait of a young man and, and the doubleness wherever the child they could destroy good coming of age books I loved, and when I discovered Tolstoy and Anna Karina, that was it Christian Socialism but I went on, I didn't stop there, I wanted to be a writer, so first I brushed up my knowledge of James Tate and Naruda, then came Solzinestian or did it take place in 1917. He predicted the prisons of the US and this being the country I came to Treeleaf begging to get ready for death and at first, right from the first I wanted to go to Japan and be with the place where Nuclear War had been actually, been wagged, and of course then they discovered fire bombing was just as horrible, and then, my own daughter had stood at ground zero and wept, and I wept for her because I read close to Snowy Mountains in the east that had escaped these atrocities only because Dogen had been hiding in the first place, like me at age 71 WHEN I CAN DO NO GOOD, but I just keep writing and hope for a miracle at Ukraine, where fighting may go on and these mad men have missals parked at the boarder's. I sit for peace as often as I can what good does it do to watch the clock and once we went over the 30 minutes because I felt deep in my bones, I was doing some good. Finally I am ready for death, because they decided I don't have schizophrenia but just bipolar, and I believe then wrong because I am atypical, and now they say I'm normal and praying and sitting for Peace and there is the Middle East where the Saudis have struck a deal that freedom may come crashing down I Am Malala will be a fortress and I sit for women because they may be burdened first, then men, then children. Please God, please our Buddha make a difference, my own daughter studies Peace in Japan and slowly literature in Twitter is being destroyed under the guise of room for their passwords, and storage, good bye moon, my daughter's favorite, and now she sees dad making his stand zazen every day and sometimes two or three times a day. Will it make a difference in my atypical normal behavior at least, I weep for my friends at Treeleaf see me as normal and my therapist also says I am normal, but then there is that last diagnosis bipolar what...JinKan studies peace every day, please friend can we get well together, or are we pushed to the brink, we can make a difference your getting well is a stand for peace...
Gasho
Sat/lah
Tai Shi

[Onkai]

I'm glad you are feeling somewhat better, JinKan. Thank you for your teachings on letting go of expectations and that your teachings are freely given.

Gassho, Onkai
Sat lah

[Jinkan]

I’m going to talk about failing and failures in regards to zazen practice. I use the word failing a lot and I used to say that I was often failing. I choose to use failing because failed has an air of finality. You can change your failings but once you have failed that’s it. So what is the great advice to give when a person feels that they are failing or feeling they have failed in zazen.
Sit! Just sit. Sit whether you feel you have failed or you have great insights. If I just tell you that you haven’t failed and that there is no good or bad zazen. That may just seem a platitude offered in comfort. You need to sit failure until it is let go. Accepting it as the impermanent ephemeral thoughts and feelings it is. There is only one way to fail at zazen and that is to stop sitting. Sitting is just sitting. It isn’t a medicine for suffering. It isn’t something you fail or succeed at. Not good nor bad. Those moments when you truly perceive sitting as just sitting free of any distinction you have touched the truth of practice. On butt or back you cross the finish line of the goalless goal. The race may seem to end and then all of a sudden start anew. In those moments of truly sitting in hi-shiryo there is no race no goal. No attaining and no enlightenment. You will suddenly experience what all those words some of which you may have been attached to were pointing too.
So again I say Sit. Sit with illness and fears of death. Sit with the idea zazen is a waste of time. Sit with frustration, elation and pain.
Sit with faith knowing you are doing all that need be done. Sit with knowing you are living and truly embodying life. Sit without grasping. Sit until you are just sitting. Then your mind will be like a mirror just reflecting. The mirror doesn’t choose what it reflects and doesn’t hold on to images. It’s just reflects.
Sit! Sit until you are just sitting.

Here is a brief story of letting go of being a picky eater in the temple. I have always been told I’m a picky eater. The problem is I have a lot of allergies and I also have a very visceral reaction to foods I don’t like in the form of vomiting. So when I did some training in a Rinzai temple I hit a road block. I was told I had to eat whatever was put in front of me. For me this was a very hard practice. I have an aversion to vinegary foods such as pickles and I have always hated cabbage. In general I outside of ramen I dislike Japanese food in general. Sacrilege I know but it’s the truth. At 6’1” I dropped to 125 pounds from 180. Which is a little less than what chemo Covid and a heart surgery have done. At me beefiest before chemo I was 265 and now I’m 205. That massive weight loss in Japan was in the course of a few months while the other has been years. So I was constantly forcing me self to eat foods I knew I would throw up or getting jaundice because me G6PD was reacting to all the soy. After the third epipen I went to the monk in charge and told him that me body is a better teacher than him. He needed to drop his attachment to forcing me to eat foods that were making me sick. You are going to kill me listening to me body will allow me to keep practicing. The abbot was told of our interaction and pulled me aside. I thought I was about to get chewed out for talking back to a senior student. Which would have been especially embarrassing here because I would have gotten it through a translator. The Roshi hit me on the back and said I was waiting for you to speak up. He poked me in the chest with his fan and said listen to your body sometimes it is the best teacher. His words spoke the truth I learned through practice.
Gassho
JinKan

[Onkai]

Thank you, JinKan.

Gassho, Onkai
Sat lah

[Bion]

I’m going to talk about failing and failures in regards to zazen practice. I use the word failing a lot and I used to say that I was often failing. I choose to use failing because failed has an air of finality. You can change your failings but once you have failed that’s it. So what is the great advice to give when a person feels that they are failing or feeling they have failed in zazen.
Sit! Just sit. Sit whether you feel you have failed or you have great insights. If I just tell you that you haven’t failed and that there is no good or bad zazen. That may just seem a platitude offered in comfort. You need to sit failure until it is let go. Accepting it as the impermanent ephemeral thoughts and feelings it is. There is only one way to fail at zazen and that is to stop sitting. Sitting is just sitting. It isn’t a medicine for suffering. It isn’t something you fail or succeed at. Not good nor bad. Those moments when you truly perceive sitting as just sitting free of any distinction you have touched the truth of practice. On butt or back you cross the finish line of the goalless goal. The race may seem to end and then all of a sudden start anew. In those moments of truly sitting in hi-shiryo there is no race no goal. No attaining and no enlightenment. You will suddenly experience what all those words some of which you may have been attached to were pointing too.
So again I say Sit. Sit with illness and fears of death. Sit with the idea zazen is a waste of time. Sit with frustration, elation and pain.
Sit with faith knowing you are doing all that need be done. Sit with knowing you are living and truly embodying life. Sit without grasping. Sit until you are just sitting. Then your mind will be like a mirror just reflecting. The mirror doesn’t choose what it reflects and doesn’t hold on to images. It’s just reflects.
Sit! Sit until you are just sitting.

Here is a brief story of letting go of being a picky eater in the temple. I have always been told I’m a picky eater. The problem is I have a lot of allergies and I also have a very visceral reaction to foods I don’t like in the form of vomiting. So when I did some training in a Rinzai temple I hit a road block. I was told I had to eat whatever was put in front of me. For me this was a very hard practice. I have an aversion to vinegary foods such as pickles and I have always hated cabbage. In general I outside of ramen I dislike Japanese food in general. Sacrilege I know but it’s the truth. At 6’1” I dropped to 125 pounds from 180. Which is a little less than what chemo Covid and a heart surgery have done. At me beefiest before chemo I was 265 and now I’m 205. That massive weight loss in Japan was in the course of a few months while the other has been years. So I was constantly forcing me self to eat foods I knew I would throw up or getting jaundice because me G6PD was reacting to all the soy. After the third epipen I went to the monk in charge and told him that me body is a better teacher than him. He needed to drop his attachment to forcing me to eat foods that were making me sick. You are going to kill me listening to me body will allow me to keep practicing. The abbot was told of our interaction and pulled me aside. I thought I was about to get chewed out for talking back to a senior student. Which would have been especially embarrassing here because I would have gotten it through a translator. The Roshi hit me on the back and said I was waiting for you to speak up. He poked me in the chest with his fan and said listen to your body sometimes it is the best teacher. His words spoke the truth I learned through practice.
Gassho
JinKan

Lovely and wise words! Thank you!

Sat Today

[Myosho]

Thank You, Jinkan.

Gassho Myosho

Sat

[Tai Shi]

JinKan, nothing I ever went to begins to compare. Remember your words are your words--no one can copy, ever come close to your truth; tell us a measure of truth far beyond. I only hope to understand your agony.
Gassho
sat/lah
Taishi